Orla O Driscoll Archives – The College View

15 years, nine months, and 25 days

April 4, 2018

A 15-year-old girl gives birth, alone, beside a holy statue in a church yard.

Age is just a number

March 21, 2018

I found defence inside a shell. In three years I rarely took a day off, I am lucky, my husband has been my fall guy. I was not sure year two would happen.

Giving while living – the sharing billionaire

March 21, 2018

The rhyme says sharing is caring, but billionaire Chuck Feeney exemplifies the concept: “I cannot think of a more personally rewarding and appropriate use of wealth than to give while one is living,” Feeney says.

You drive me crazy

March 7, 2018

Snow covers pockmarked roads, a crunchy backdrop to a husky crescendo promising ‘We won’t have to drive too far, close to the border and into the city.’ A conjuring of prose and clever song lyrics,

There is something about Mary

February 21, 2018

Irish Women won the limited right to vote 100 years ago, and today, women have a voice and are treated as first class citizens in almost all countries. Here are the some of the most powerful

They shoot horses, don’t they?

February 21, 2018

Ossie was the most handsome traveller that ever lived and the princess told him that he was too handsome to ever grow old. She took him away over the sea to the Land of Eternal

Grooming – the dark channels of cyber deviancy

February 14, 2018

Grooming is the common term used to explain how a sexual predator draws a child into their trust, with the core objective; to meet the child in the real world to commit sexual abuse.

No good time for goodbye

November 29, 2017

Darkness does not discriminate. Few people are bypassed when dire possibility and self-doubt eradicate even the faintest glimmer of light. Darkness can live within us all. For most, it pays only fleeting visits. For most, suicide is not

Contempt of freedom of expression

November 1, 2017

Our constitution guarantees that we have a right to freely express our convictions and opinions.

Queen of the night

October 18, 2017

There is a certain seediness in leaving the bright sunshine of an early summer evening to disappear inside the whoosh of a door. From the hustle and squeal of traffic on Georges Street, into the icon

Sunbed VAT rate increased due to “clear evidence” of link to skin cancer

October 18, 2017

Minister Paschal Donohue increased the VAT rate applied to sunbed services in yesterday’s budget, due to “clear evidence” of a link between sunbed use and skin cancer. The increase from 13.5 percent to 23 percent

Budget 2018: Tackling cancer

October 11, 2017

Minister Paschal Donohue increased the VAT rate applied to sunbed services in yesterday’s budget, due to “Clear evidence” of a link between sunbed use and skin cancer, he said.

Back to the future-ish

October 11, 2017

Once upon a time, those of us over the age of 27, imagined that by now, we would glide through our daily routines, resplendent in suits of crystal LED’s, attending to life from the noiseless

I am not to blame

September 27, 2017

Rape. It’s a tiny word that contains so much emotion, violence, destruction and devastation. It means, by it’s dictionary definition; to plunder, to strip bare of resources, to sexually assault. There is no question of

Smoking mirrors

April 19, 2017

Iconic movie legends of the 1940s and 50s were the trend setters of their day. In a time when the world was shrugging off the vestiges of war, a well-tailored pencil skirt and a pair

Postcards from abroad

April 5, 2017

The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair.” So says the great author JRR Tolkien. As Ibrahim Halawa spends yet another

The Great Debate: are SU elections just popularity contests?

March 22, 2017

For by Michael O Scannáil: Students are bombarded with free food from the friends of Students’ Union election candidates. We once again must decide who we want to make up the new SU, who we

Goodbye Lucy

March 8, 2017

According to Aristotle; At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice, he is the worst. In the mire, which carpets the underbelly of the sex trade, in the

Sticks and Stones

March 8, 2017

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names can never hurt me; perhaps that used to be true. Or, perhaps it applied to a time before technology invaded safe spaces, before the insidious nature

Splitting the movie myth of split personalites

February 22, 2017

Teasing a fear from the depths of safety delivers a rush of adrenaline, increases our heart rates and is often referred to as the fight or flight response; the edge of the unknown. Little children

Paws for thought

November 30, 2016

He arrived five years ago, saved from the promise of a plastic bag and the murky water of the grand canal. He arrived tiny, quiet, and resembling a cloud with a chance of rain. After a

Alan Smeaton and the wonders of data analytics

November 16, 2016

ProfessorAlan Smeaton was not expected to be an innovator, or an academic. As a young man, he did well in school but his family background didn’t indicate that a university education would be his path.

We do not cry because we knew them

October 26, 2016

Death visits us all eventually, the game however, is to thwart its arrival for as long as possible. Ultimately though, it will arrive to embrace us and for those we leave in our wake, the

How to save a life

October 12, 2016

Humanity is not the perfect species, there is no promise of healthy perfect babies, but few people become pregnant with the expectation of having a child with a life altering disease. Cystic Fibrosis is a